figversefandomcom-20200216-history
Talk:Figverse Wiki
Use this page to make suggestions for the wiki. Where did Fighunter.com go? it doesn't seem to load, and It doesn't seem to give any indication that it will load. did Pseudo quit? If so, good on him. The exact same thing happened to me. Whats happening? Is the page having maintenance? Similar results here with sporadic checks since it started some eight or nine hours ago. I saw no announcements from Pseudo before it began. Last he spoke in the chat he was expressing mild dread at having to process the flood of applications for the MARDEK 3 beta test. --Hlbeta (unregistered) 02:20, February 1, 2010 (UTC) :It was overloaded by all the comments and such... It seems to be working now... Uh, also, anyone can see your IP by going to the recent changes... - SavageWolf ( Talk | ) 16:13, February 1, 2010 (UTC) Redesign I think the homepage needs to be redesigned, from scratch... - SavageWolf ( Talk | ) 14:50, August 1, 2010 (UTC) :What exactly needs redesigning? I think the page is pretty well organized, since it provides visible links to each major category of a section of the wiki. Or does everything just look ugly? - Dragonshark 16:50, August 1, 2010 (UTC) ::It just looks... Ugly... - SavageWolf ( Talk | ) 09:04, August 2, 2010 (UTC) Createplate Currently, the "create a new page" link uses an extension called createplate which automatically generates bases for pages. It used to have more options than characters, but they weren't being used so I deleted them before bringing this up for discussion. I'd like to move to delete the createplate bases and just let people copy existing page structures when creating new pages. Problems with the current setup as follows: *HTML comments go on the page itself, generally looking ugly in the edit summary. *Template calls variables it doesn't need to. *Template limited to being called "characterInfobox" in case a situation ever arose in which we wanted different boxes for different games (due to being given different information). *Headers with nothing in them are being created: "Strategy" for most characters. *Additional headers, like Gope's shops, have to be added manually. *Encourages people to add external links when they really aren't necessary. *Image links have an "upload image" option only. I could work on improving the createplate thing, but I'd rather just delete it all and make a standards page, or just assume people are already looking at similar pages before creating them. I stuck this here because I couldn't find a "general discussion" area - I suppose those who are active will find this through the recent changes.--Ryo Sangnoir 16:20, August 28, 2010 (UTC) :I'd agree that the createplate should be removed. As for formatting a character page, probably something like: :*The normal infobox at the top of the page, renamed to 'CharacterInfoboxM' to make it MARDEK-specific. :*The intro (that does not go under heading), containing a spoiler-free summary of the character's background. (Probably describing when he/she/xe is first met in the game) :*A heading that contains the character's in-game biography, with each separate biography for different chapters being in subheadings. :*The next heading summarizing the character's entire life story, simply titled 'Story'. This replaces the current involvement section found on most character pages. :*If the character is fought at some point in the game, a heading titled 'Battle', which contains links the the character's enemy page(s). :*A heading titled 'Quotes'. This is currently found in many character pages. :*Trivia, if applicable. Also currently found in many pages. :*The normal see also/external links sections, if applicable. :This might require some minor rewriting of existing pages, but would it be too much of a pain to implement? - Dragonshark 18:08, August 30, 2010 (UTC) ::The major difficulty will be in transcribing the biographies for those characters that do not yet have them up. I'm also for using the biography section to store implied histories of characters such as Gope who don't have an encyclopedia section: keeping story for events that happen from chapter 1 onwards. Under consideration, what should the headings be? "Biography", "Background" or "Encyclopedia Entry" for the encyclopedia entry, "Story" or "Involvement" for the story events, "Quotes" or "Dialogue" for more complete quotes...?--Ryo Sangnoir 14:53, August 31, 2010 (UTC) :::I think 'Background' will work for the encyclopedia entry, since the encyclopedia just gives a short background on the character with their status at the beginning of the chapter (or when they are first met), and I prefer 'Story' over 'Involvement' since it's more fitting for a section that details the character's entire life story. I really don't have an opinion for Quotes/Dialogue, but quotes is currently used in all character pages that have that section, so we should probably keep that name. I've also noticed that some character pages have a section that details the character's personality, and/or their powers and abilities, eg Moric. Should they be kept as individual headings (possibly optional, especially for powers/abilities)? - Dragonshark 02:07, September 1, 2010 (UTC) ::::I'm for keeping Powers/Abilities separate simply because they don't fit easily into any other section - I'd also put the link to techniques of player characters at the end of the powers section, if it exists. Personality is also an interpretation of game events, but could be placed at the end of "Story" quite easily.--Ryo Sangnoir 12:07, September 1, 2010 (UTC) :I say remove it... It's annoying... - SavageWolf ( Talk | ) 18:37, August 30, 2010 (UTC) :I think there is much confusion on what are the details which are required, so having a template helps. However the thing is most ppl do not know what is supposed to go under which headings. So it will be good to standardise for eg. where the encyclopedia entries go, where their involvement in quests are, and further information on the character which may just be from random townfolks/book shelves or other sources (maybe these can go under trivia?). Btw are the encyclopedia entries consistant, or do they change with the chapters? Messyhair 11:41, September 1, 2010 (UTC) Mandatory new skin As you may or may not have known, Wikia (the company that hosts us and a bunch of other wikis), plans to implement a mandatory new skin on all of the wikis it hosts by the 20th of October (with the option to use the current one, Monaco, being removed by November 3). This skin was marked with a lot of controversy in their community forums, but they have stated that they will implement the skin despite any amount of negative feedback. They apparently made me a beta tester for this new skin, which has allowed be to view it on this wiki specifically. I've noticed some major problems: *'The article space is far, far too small' (less than 700px). This breaks some of the existing tables, especially the ones on Resistance (MARDEK), and also the pages containing MARDEK maps (since a sidebar with Wikia advertising and a bunch of unnecessary things like a "Recently Uploaded Photos" module are on the right side of the content page now, and horizontal scrollbars cannot be enabled*). A "Transition Guide" thing written by Wikia says that those things might need to be "adjusted" in the new layout, but I have no idea how without sacrificing the quantity and usefulness of the information. And forget about using CSS to expand the fixed width or get rid of it altogether because Wikia updated their Terms of Use to prevent such a thing (apparently they want to provide a "consistent experience" for users across all Wikia wikis). *'Decreased navigation.' Links to the various parts of the wiki is now located on the top, and there can now be only 4 main links, with 7 links in a sub-menu for each one. This is unlike the Monaco skin, where we can add as many links as we wanted to. This becomes a serious problem especially as more games are released. *'More advertisements.' The top and right side of the page are now cluttered with more advertisements and links to other Wikia wikis (which I doubt anyone uses on this wiki anyway.) This in general makes the wiki look more like a blog/social networking site than an encyclopedia. As per the updated Terms of Use, we also cannot remove these. *'Removal of the sitenotice.' Or rather, it has been replaced with a much worse "improvement". Every time the sitenotice is updated, a little message box in the left side of the screen will tell you so, similar to when someone leaves a message on your talk page. *Wikia says that they will enable horizontal scrollbars soon. The problems on the beta version aren't fixed in the current one. Please turn the skin on and give your opinions on it so we can decide what to do if no one likes it. You can view the wiki with the new skin while logged in by going to your preferences (click the 'More' button at the upper right side of the screen, then to the Skin tab, then selecting "New Wikia Look". - Dragonshark 23:24, October 7, 2010 (UTC) :I think it looks kinda cool! I'll have a llok round the CSS and stuff and see what I can do... - SavageWolf ( Talk | ) 14:38, October 8, 2010 (UTC) ::Note to self: Read posts fully before responding. Uh, so we have more choice about this then? Well, I suppose we'd better redesign all the boxes and things to the new skin! Also, set the default skin to it. Uh seeing as we have to redesign every box, I'm thinking that they should be "standardised" in some way, rather than the haphazard way they are now (Each box has it's own unique colour, and is difficult to change them), maybe... I'm not explaining it very well... Hmm... Maybe I should start writing about it somewhere? - SavageWolf ( Talk | ) 15:04, October 8, 2010 (UTC) ::Here we are! User:SavageWolf/Standard - SavageWolf ( Talk | ) 15:51, October 8, 2010 (UTC) :::Despite whatever happens with the new skin fiasco, standardized infoboxes and colors would be a good idea either way. Some advanced customization other than using the Theme Designer can be done using MediaWiki:Wikia.css (which I think also allows the creation of custom classes, something like Common.css), but the things mentioned above (fixed width, modules) cannot be removed or changed. The difficulty and time required to redesign many articles and templates was also another source of controversy on the community forums (some wikis are even considering switching hosts because of it, hmm...). The Wikia staff are apparently deciding to wait for more user feedback from the entire Wikia userbase before making changes to some of the more problematic features of the new skin, such as fixed width (even though 2500+ comments reporting the same problems over and over again on their blogs were not enough). Should we wait until the staff hopefully expands the fixed width or try to redesign templates right now? - Dragonshark 21:25, October 8, 2010 (UTC) ::::I'll begin integrating the system now then, if they do change the width, all we'll have to do is resize { {Box} }, and I'll also set the default skin to this. - SavageWolf ( Talk | ) 08:38, October 9, 2010 (UTC) ::: :::Well this seems... poorly done. Still, I'd say redesigning the templates now is a better course of action than doing nothing. Standardized infoboxes/colors/templates/etc would help improve the wiki as a whole, whether it is decided that the skin stays as is, or not. And if it is decided that the skin will change to... this, then at least we'll have a head start, right? ::: :::As for the decreased navigation, there could be a page which links to every other page, sort of similar to the "Browse" page, only more visually appealing and less technical. Sort of a "root page," with every page linking back to it. Uh... that probably doesn't make much sense. :::--DK 00:20, October 9, 2010 (UTC) ::::The links at the top could perhaps link to the main 'content areas' of the wiki, and from there provide links to more specific pages. (eg. a link to the MARDEK section as a subpage of the main page, and from there provide links to monsters, skills, etc.) - Dragonshark 15:32, October 9, 2010 (UTC) Update The new skin can now be seen by anonymous users. I'll start a poll to see their opinion on the skin. A few more points to address about the new skin: *'Future changes:' The Wikia staff have said that the fixed width and massive right-aligned sidebar are unlikely to change. Even if it does change in the future, they say that they have "months of user testing and click tracking ahead of them" before making any major changes. *'Image attribution, blogs, Facebook connect, page sharing, etc:' Does anyone here actually use these social features? I think they are very irrelevant and detract from the purpose of a wiki, or at least the purpose of this one (a repository for information, NOT a social networking site) *'User-friendliness:' The staff claims that the new skin is supposed to encourage new users to join and stay on a wiki, which is a good cause. However, more experienced users find it annoying to adapt to and work with. Readers might also find it annoying, since most of them will be familiar with the "traditional" wiki layout (left sidebar navigation; not overly embellished; variable article width). How user-friendly and accessible do you think the previous skin was compared to this one? - Dragonshark 02:26, October 24, 2010 (UTC) Should we leave Wikia? Well, there appear to be mixed reviews about the new skin. Quite a few people dislike it, but some also say they "loved" it, However, I think it would be better for the future if we left Wikia, and therefore the new look, because of a few important reasons: #I've been reading a lot of the comments on the community forums for some time now, and I've been rather appalled by the attitude of the staff. They act as if their clientele were small children, and that the new skin is vegetables/medicine for them. That is, they are firmly convinced that the new skin will be better for every Wikia user in the future. In addition to that, they have a "too bad, so sad" attitude to people who don't like the new skin. Clearly, they are keeping only their corporate interests in mind when it comes to the new skin. #More "collectivization of wikis" and required, but unnecessary new features might occur in the future due to the extremely restrictive new Terms of Use. The staff thinks that this one-size-fits all skin will work for every wiki and user, every time, and don't care about the redesigning that needs to be done in order to adapt. #The huge prominence of advertisements is completely distracting. A large banner ad at the top of the screen shifts the main wiki navigation down on every page (only the main page for registered users), which is both distracting and ugly. In addition to this, a massive, irremovable, 300x250 box ad is at the top of the right sidebar (which is why it can't be removed). If we switch hosts, the advertisements will be much smaller and be placed in better positions (there would only be two small vertical banner ads in two small sidebars on both sides of the screen). #Overall, some parts of the new skin are improved, but the question is more of a moral issue. The Wikia staff seem to be avoiding negative feedback and sugarcoating their comments in response. Because of this, I have no idea what more controversy they might try to pull in the future. Some other wikis, including very large and important ones, have already moved from Wikia, or are in the process of moving. What we would leave behind if we switched hosts *The new skin, obviously. *The Rich Text Editor and CategorySelect (an easy way to add/remove categories at the bottom of the page) *Blogs and Facebook Connect *Avatars and the fancy userpage masthead *Search Engine Rankings would also drop. However, we can still direct people to the new site by asking Pseudo to change the link to the wiki on the main site, and making an announcement on the Kongregate forums (or something like that). We can't leave a notice linking to the new site that's visible to every user because the staff would only quickly find out and remove it (which has occurred in basically every wiki that has tried to do this). *MyHome/WikiActivity *The automated welcome bot for new users There are two skins we can adapt regardless of the new webhost - Monobook (an old but convenient skin that can still be found in some wikis, eg Bulbapedia), or Vector (similar to Monobook but with a bunch of graphical improvements, currently used by Wikipedia) Where we can go/transferring content There's a possible webhost, ShoutWiki, that has the necessary extensions for the features of this wiki (parser functions, etc.) They're currently in the process of getting new servers due to the increased traffic of other wikis moving. For transferring content, I'll have to request a database dump update from Special:Statistics, and contact ShoutWiki about this. I'll elaborate more on this depending on what others think of moving from Wikia... More info about this can be found here. - Dragonshark 21:05, November 5, 2010 (UTC) :I'm against moving: I don't think it's a major problem. Currently the only pages which are screwed up are Map pages, but some of those caused horizontal scrollbars on decently sized screens anyway, and clicking through to the image itself isn't that big a deal. :According to the poll, about 70% of people don't hate it, and 50% don't dislike it: considering change is normally badly received I'd say that's not a bad number. Of course, the numbers don't reveal anything about the demographics. :#While the staff didn't respond to most comments, I'm not sure there was a way they could have. "New look stinks!" doesn't provide any information or constructive criticism. "I hate the new look!" can't really be answered. There were some good posts in there, some of which were answered, but they were mostly drowned out by vitriol and continued references to how Wikia was a horrible corporate demonic business that cared nothing for its userbase. The discussion about accessibility is filled with "you changed it now it sucks" posts relating to how much better and more convenient the old skin was than the new. :#This a true, the new Terms are somewhat aggrieving. I'm glad that currently some features are not mandated as necessary: achievements still remain optional for current wikis that never had them, and can be turned off (by appeal) and wikis that don't want them. The sidebar positioning is inconvenient, and something seems to have broken infobox stretching - I could have sworn it worked before. :#Now, with ads, you really have two options: one is adblock, I hear that works well for people who really hate ads. The second is simply ignoring them - I've browsed for years without adblock, and the only ads I even notice any more are those served by project wonderful - plain images, no flash, nothing extra, often relevant. I didn't even notice the ads you mentioned until you pointed them out - I've simply got so used to not noticing them. :Conversely, I remain of the opinion that most of what has been added is unnecessary: I still prefer the basic "create a page" from way back when as opposed to the one we have now. However, I do like the floating toolbar, if simply because it lets me have a "what links here" on every page rather than having to force it. I'm not keen on the removal of page history from some pages not in the main article space, but that's just resistance to change: it was often unnecessary, and I can still force it. I don't think any "experienced editors" use RTE due to it being inferior to the old system if you already know the old system. Similarly, Category Select is most useful when you don't know the name of the category you're trying to add the page too. It's true: most of the positive? changes won't affect us: we don't use thumbed or framed images in our infoboxes and so avoid attribution, I don't think anyone uses the social stuff, although it's now more convenient if they ever wanted to. The small page size is a caveat, but we have it working now, for the most part. - Ryo Sangnoir 14:19, November 7, 2010 (UTC) :I look at it this way: ::Q: What's the goal of this Wiki? ::A: To store info about the FH universe, and to make it so that people can find this info, and use it. ::Q: Do the changes currently hinder us from doing this? ::A: Not at the moment. Sure, the new skin is an annoyance, but the info is still there. :So we should stay... for the time being. However, the newer Terms of Service might make things difficult in the future, so we should keep it as an option, just in case. :Think of it as a "trial run." Wait, see how things go, and if we don't like the way things turn out (for instance, they try to force more problematic changes on us), then leave Wikia. :I just don't think we know enough yet to make any assumptions. --DK 01:33, November 8, 2010 (UTC) ::(responding to both of these) I suppose it'd be a good idea to see how this skin does during the next game release, which is likely a few months from now, before we strongly consider moving. But one question remains: is it truly beneficial (as in, more readable) to have the article content squished into a tiny column? - Dragonshark 02:02, November 9, 2010 (UTC) New Logo? So, Pseudolonewolf has created a new site logo for his site. Do we intend to change our logo also, or are we just gonna leave it as is? --DK 22:38, February 18, 2011 (UTC) :I think he'll use both logos, depending on which game it is. We should probably base changing our logo depending on what happens to the site's old one. In the meantime, however, I painstakingly drew a (mediocre) new pixelated logo for here: : :How does this one look? (I removed the outside border around the glyph due to size constraints.) - Dragonshark 02:26, February 19, 2011 (UTC) ::Might want to consider moving "Wiki" down a notch. "W"s look pretty annoying to pixellate like that, but then we're not expecting anyone to stare at the logo for that long. It's well in style with the actual logo, and it and the transparencies look good on our background. The colours are pretty similar, now that I compare, but I'm not sure that's important. Might want to make "WIKI" a bit more...saturated? Noticeably (for me, at least) with the favicon unchanged it looks a bit odd, but the logo won't be on screen all that long.--Ryo Sangnoir 18:14, February 21, 2011 (UTC)